This Preparation Place...

The lesson I am preparing for the Sunday School class is about the parable of The Unjust Steward

As I flipped through the Gardening Book I bought yesterday the words below leaped from a page…both of these examples point to what this life is all about...preparing for the next!

 

This place of grace

Where human race

Is prone to lose sight of the Whole

Is like a leap

Before death’s sleep

Unveils life’s solemn, sacred goal

This skin and bone

That soul alone

Will supersede, is but a shell

That holds the crux

Where all of us

Must choose the place for Soul to dwell

Time's vapor, fringed

With choice is hinged

To Something thought cannot descry

Of timeless deep

Beyond this leap

To by and by and by and by

© Janet Martin

We are not our own

But bought with a price

Only Jesus’ blood atones

He, sin’s sacrifice

We are not our own

But servants of HE

Who has made a way for man

To live eternally

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son,

That whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.

John 3:16

Into the Unknown

We can try walking backwards, but forward we go

Into the haze of unknown

Oh, what sweet comfort it is to know

That we are never alone

Holy, unfailing, the love to God’s own

Sanctions these vessels of dust

Into the haze of a new day’s Unknown

We go, with nothing but trust

© Janet Martin

 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. 

Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, 

for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go."

Joshua 1:9

Day by Day, click link to
hear its lovely words and melody...

Before Never Again...

While the sun races clear across the sky

Chasing daylight into dusk’s lullaby

We should at the very least try to try

To make a beautiful mem’ry because

Then ever after, whatever befalls

Nothing can alter that which thought recalls

Where moments meld into mute madrigals

Etched into echoes; this day that once was

© Janet Martin

What began as a gray, rainy day turned into record-shattering sunny temperatures.

Victoria and I LOVE thrift-store shopping so while it was gray we headed out...

and what a fun-find time we had! After we were shopped out we stopped at our favorite coffee spot, Tim Horton's and were happily surprised to find out R-r-r-r-roll up the rim (a little Canadian winter-perk)starts today! Victoria rolled up a 'win a coffee' (or hot beverage of choice)!

...then the sun came out and suddenly we felt like going home.

We o-o-o-o-hed and a-a-a-a-hed and clicked sky pics all the way home...

It's true, what Cyndy said here

When we got home we unloaded our goodies...

Oh! What goodies, you ask?

Here, let me show you...a 12 for a buck VHS sale allowed us these finds

next, we checked out books, and home decor

...and more books,

...and baskets...

...and home decor

Next, I read the book below from cover to cover in the sun on the back deck BECAUSE!!!!

picnics are one of my top ten favorite things in the world! 

and the writings, recipes and pics in this book are stellar!
(and because a day like today in the middle of winter needs to be spent out-doors!)

...then finished the afternoon with a first-time-ever-in-my-life February bike ride!
Today it was 14C/57F

By the way, did you notice that big, glossy gardening book?
W-A-A-Y-Y-Y too much good stuff in it to share in this post;-) That book and the picnic book where the 'finds' of the day! 

And the best part?
Our purchases helped fund the new local hospital,
where proceeds from this thrift-store's monies go (insert yippee:)

I like the poem today wrote;-)
(see previous post)

Un-poetry

I wonder what adventure waits

In syllables, as yet, unstrung

The teasing of it saturates

The silences that vex the tongue

Where we are not as fearless as

The young, footloose and fancy-free

But still, hope runs wild to beget

What is as yet, un-poetry

© Janet Martin

Well, I'm off to write the poetry of the day!

o-o-o-oh! I wonder what it will be?!

The first verse includes dishwater and kitchen-cleaning;-)

but then, who knows?

The high-schools are in examweek so Victoria is home today, her last one written yesterday.

When I asked her how she thinks she did she laughed, I W-A-A-Y over-studied on what we learned, and then the exam included some parts that our class never took!!!;-((

I Like the Lilt of Laughter Spilt...

I like the lilt of laughter spilt

From the clock-tower of the sky

Where fluent thrum of moments strum

Life’s hum-de-dum into ‘oh my’

I like the sweep where seasons leap

Like dancers across living’s stage

From over there to over here

My, my, how lithe their promenade

I like the flower of an hour

Hail, fair surprise within time’s bloom

Where soon thy petals waft, silk-soft

To crypts that no one can exhume

I like the shock of tick and tock

It teaches me how to revere

Each fragment of  life’s moments, love

They spill at will then disappear

…and if nothing would ever change

How heavy hunger’s feet would be

A weary plod across time’s sod

Of unrelenting constancy

© Janet Martin

 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

Eccl.3:3